Vaccination to begin Feb 26

KOTA KINABALU: The Covid-19 vaccination programme is expected to begin on February 26, and will be implemented in three phases.

Local Government and Housing Minister Datuk Seri Panglima Masidi Manjun said the first phase shall involve frontliners while the second phase will be catered for people with comorbidities such as senior citizens and those with chronic illnesses.

The third phase is for citizens who are 18 years old and above, he said.

The first phase is expected to start on February 26 until April 2021.

“The second and third phases are expected to begin from April 2021 and will be continued until February 2022,” he said.

Masidi also cited Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin in listing out five methods to register for the vaccination.

Khairy was reported saying that the vaccine recipients can apply via MySejahtera application, the ‘Jawatankuasa Khas Jaminan Akses Bekalan Vaksin Covid19 JKJAV’ website, a hotline which would be determined later, manual registrations at clinics and hospitals and lastly, through cooperation with state governments to carry out the registrations.

Masidi said that the National Safety Council (NSC) also has a huge role to acquire the list of registrants for the vaccination in the second and third phases with the help of village heads and Village Community Administration Councils.

He said an estimated three million people in Sabah will receive the vaccination by February, 2022.

Masidi also said that foreigners, including the undocumented illegal immigrants, will also be given free vaccination in line with the National Covid-19 Immunisation programme.

In Sarawak, about 40,000 frontliners are set to receive the Covid-19 vaccine in the first phase of the programme roll-out starting Feb 27.

State Health Director Dr Chin Zin Hing said yesterday that the immunisation programme in Sarawak was divided into three phases, whereby the first phase is for the frontliners.

“The second phase involves individuals aged 60 and above and those with co-morbid diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure, while the third phase is for individuals aged 60 and below with no chronic illnes,” he said in a media conference in Kuching yesterday.

A total of 56 vaccine centres have been identified for the purpose throughout Sarawak including the Bau Hospital, Lundu Hospital, Singai Health Clinic, Batu Kawa Health Clinic, Jalan Masjid Health Clinic, Petra Jaya Health Clinic, Tanah Putih Health Clinic and Sarawak General Hospital.

It is expected that 2.2 million people in Sarawak will receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine this year.

Meanwhile, 246 new Covid-19 cases were detected in the state yesterday, bringing the cumulative positive cases to 6,832.

Sarawak Disaster Management Committee chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas said the increase in new cases was due to active case detection exercise in several areas following the spread of the pandemic among the community.